Home science

Bacteria killing stainless steel of the future

I love technological advances of all kinds and I loathe illness-causing bacteria. So when Professor Dennis Hess, Associate Professor Julie Champion, Postdoctoral Fellow Yeongseon Jang, and Postdoctoral Fellow Won Tae Choi at Georgia Institute of Technology developed a new nanotextured surface for stainless steel that kills common bacteria I was thrilled.

This isn’t a coating that wears away – the stainless steel is physically etched and is thus a permanent treatment. The researchers used an “electrochemical etching process on a common stainless steel alloy” (Georgia Institute of Technology News Center, Curiosity) to create the nanotexture.

The researchers aren’t sure about the mechanism that causes bacterial mortality, but they speculate that the bacteria (which are much smaller than mammalian cells) are physically skewered by the microscopic sharp edges while mammalian cells are left undamaged because of their differences in sizes.  So far, they say that the nano-etching has been shown to kill Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. 

This nanotextured stainless steel also seems to improve corrosion resistance and has potential future applications in implantable medical devices and food processing equipment but researchers will be conducting long-term studies to ensure that mammalian cells remain healthy and determine how the etched surface responds to wear over time. Please visit the Georgia Institute of Technology News Center to read more about this promising stainless steel.

BioPops are the sea monkeys of the 21st century

Back in the 70’s when I was a young Gadgeteer in training, I remember seeing ads for Sea-Monkeys in the back of comic books that I used to read. I was fascinated by the pictures which showed them as a human-like underwater family that would live and play in a fishbowl. I saved my allowance and ordered my own Sea-Monkey kit and waited for what seemed like years for it to arrive. 

I was so excited when I received it, but my hopes were dashed when days later, the human-like family that I expected turned out to be more like tiny furry tadpoles. That was my first lesson in false advertising and I don’t think I ever truly recovered from the disappointment. 😉

Maybe a BioPop can cure that age old scar… What’s a BioPop? It’s a small aquarium with bioluminescent marine algae called dinoflagellates (dinos for short) that glow when they are shaken gently.

The algae are grown in California and live on 8-14 hours of sunlight a day, water, and nutrients from the enriched seawater inside the small aquarium. You also have to feed them once a week with a special food to increase their lifespan.

During the day the algae look clear, but at night when the aquarium is agitated, they will glow to create a mesmerizing light.

BioPops are available in a plastic dinosaur shaped aquarium or in glass spheres. They are priced at $59.95. You can read more about them at BioPop.com  and you can order from The Grommet and Amazon.

Filed in categories: News

Tagged: ,

BioPops are the sea monkeys of the 21st century originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 25, 2017 at 4:07 pm.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

Rule your own solar system with models from the Little Planet Factory

Usually, I write about a specific product in my news stories and reviews for The Gadgeteer. But recently I came across a website that blew me away with their models. The Little Planet Factory builds models of our solar system including realistic meteors (or small bodies as they are listed on the web page).

These models are made using 3D printing and are incredibly detailed. Besides the Solar System models, the Little Planet Factory also have some novelty type items such as an Earth in a bottle or a Solar System in a bottle but maybe one of the most interesting novelties for me is the Lowellian Mars model with the Martian canals. All the models are highly detailed and most come in various scales.

Prices start as low as £12 (approximately $15) to £700 ($865) and up for full Solar System models. So, if you are interested in this sort of thing or just want to see the incredible 3D printing work that the Little Planet Factory is doing you should check out their web page.

Filed in categories: Geek Toys, News

Tagged: ,

Rule your own solar system with models from the Little Planet Factory originally appeared on on March 17, 2017 at 1:01 pm.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.

The 94 yr old physicist who invented the lithium-ion battery just invented something even better

Most people may think that a 94 yr old can’t possibly have new ideas, especially when it comes to technology. But John Bannister Goodenough is poised to change the world – again. Goodenough who is a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Texas at Austin invented the lithium-ion battery with his team back in the 1980’s. Without him, the device that you’re probably using to read this article would be a lot bigger and clunkier.

Now he and his team at the University of Texas at Austin are set to shake up the tech industry with a breakthrough battery that is made of glass, has three times the power capacity of a similarly sized lithium-ion battery, charges in minutes and won’t go up in flames.

This can mean that a future of phones that last days instead of hours and all electric vehicles that drive further and charge faster could come much sooner than we hoped.

If you’d like more technical info about this Goodenough’s new battery tech, check out this article a ExtremeTech.com

Filed in categories: Cables, Batteries and Chargers, News

Tagged:

The 94 yr old physicist who invented the lithium-ion battery just invented something even better originally appeared on on March 13, 2017 at 11:01 am.

Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.